


I Never Saw You Coming

by Springmagpies



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Childhood Friends, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Reunion, Summer Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-17
Updated: 2020-03-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:48:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,762
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23191162
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Springmagpies/pseuds/Springmagpies
Summary: Jemma Simmons and Leo Fitz have been friends for years, ever since Jemma moved in the house across the street. But, after moving to the States for her second doctorate, her and Fitz fall out of touch. Will a trip back home to Glasgow for the summer help rekindle their friendship. Or perhaps, will it alight something more?
Relationships: Leo Fitz/Jemma Simmons
Comments: 18
Kudos: 76





	I Never Saw You Coming

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sunalso](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunalso/gifts).



> I wrote this as a part of Luck of the Draw for the freaking incredible @sunalsolove who requested FS Childhood Friends & Reunion Fic! Sun is amazing and is in the medical field and deserves the world in these crazy times. I hope you like it!

Jemma did not want to move, thank you very much. However, being ten years old meant that she couldn’t really argue with her parents decision. It didn’t mean she couldn’t be somewhat upset about the whole matter. Sure, Glasgow was only four hours away from Sheffield and sure, there were plenty of new things she would get to see and fine, there was a boy her age living just across the road that she could possibly be friends with, but Jemma could still be upset. 

She liked their old Sheffield house. She liked the red door that led to the back garden and the big built-in bookshelf in her room. And she liked all her old friends and knew that she would miss them. Her mother continually reminded her that she would make plenty of new friends where they were moving, her favorite bit of evidence being the boy across the way. Jemma’s mum just loved to bring up the story of her and Jemma’s father meeting the sweetest little boy when they had looked at the house, having talked to his mother for almost an hour when they bumped into her outside. After listening to the story, Jemma had been curious as to what the boy was like. However, she had felt worse thinking that the boy had been pinned in a very long and boring conversation between adults. That must have been dreadful. 

The day the Simmons’s moved in was a hot one, the late August sun beaming down and the breeze doing little to cool it off. The house, despite all the windows being open, was stuffy and cramped with boxes, making it feel like they were all tripping over one another. In order to avoid the overwhelming nature of the rest of the box filled house, Jemma had stuck to her room for the most part of the day. That is until her mother called for her at about three in the afternoon.

“Jemma, darling,” Anna Simmons called from the kitchen, “I found one of your science boxes.”

Uncrossing her legs and pulling herself up off the old hardwood flooring of her bedroom, Jemma quickly made her way into the kitchen. Her mother was placing plates in one of the kitchen cabinets, her chestnut hair tied up in a tight bun and wearing her painting clothes. When Jemma planted herself in the archway, Anna simply nodded her head in the direction of the box. 

“Oh, and Jemma,” she said, returning to the unpacking of her plates, “I saw that the neighbor boy was outside with his mother. I thought that maybe you would like to go over and introduce yourself.”

Jemma paused, her back still bent to pick up the cardboard box from the floor. She knew her mum was just anxious about making sure she was happy and okay with the move, but Jemma wasn’t overly excited about making new friends. 

“Okay, mum. Let me put away this box and then I’ll go.”

After placing the box containing her chemistry set and solar system model, Jemma made her way through the house to the front door. As she passed through the sitting room, Jemma subconsciously started fiddling with her hair and twisted the trim of her skirt in her hand. She had always been a precocious child and many children her age didn’t quite get where she was coming from. She could make friends just fine, but it always took a bit of time for her to truly warm up to them. It was a process she wasn’t overly thrilled to go through again. Besides, who knew what the neighbor boy was like. Jemma had imagined him a number of ways. In one version, there was a chance that he was incredibly boring. In another he was fascinating, but stuck up. But, in her worst nightmares, he turned out to be one of those boys still stuck in year two who pulled pigtails and thought girls were icky. Jemma just could not stand it if he was like that.

However, her mum had seemed pretty adamant that the two of them would get along, and that helped settle Jemma’s nerves a bit. What proof her mother had from the brief conversation she had had with the boys mum, Jemma didn’t know, but curiosity about what he looked like, let alone what he acted like, was enough to get her to push open the front door and walk out into the sunshine. Plus, meeting her neighbors outside meant she could get out of the stifling heat bottled up in the house and not unpack for a moment.

Jemma caught sight of them the moment she made it outside. The boy was sitting on the stoop of his house, a model plane balanced on his knees and a serious look on his face as he examined its wing. His mother was on a foam kneeling pad, pulling out weeds, patting down soil, and watering the flowers that made up the front garden. It was a modest little patch of greenery, but it flourished. Ivy twisted up the side of the house, dotted by a constellation of flowers. There were large lavender bushes by the diamond paned, casement window and peonies just by the front path. Jemma could have stared at the flowers for hours if politeness didn’t require her to speak.

Willing herself to let go of the hem of her skirt, Jemma strode down the short cobbled path of her own house, looked both ways before crossing the narrow road, and marched towards the boy and his mother. 

“Hello,” Jemma said as she halted at the end of their path. It wasn’t a very long path, but Jemma still thought it a respectable distance to keep. They hadn’t invited her in or anything, so it was polite to stay where she was.

At her greeting, the boy looked up from his airplane and his eyes went wide, his lips pulling apart slightly as he looked at her. 

Jemma truly hoped he wasn’t scared of her. Please don’t be a year two boy, Jemma thought to herself.

“Oh, hello, dear,” the woman said, pulling away from her peonies and taking off her gardening gloves, “how are you today?”

“I’m well, thank you,” Jemma said brightly, rocking on her heels. “My mum said she saw you outside and that I should come over and say hello. I’m Jemma Simmons.”

The woman gave her a beaming blue eyed smile. She had on a cream colored hat that shaded her face but the sun still caught the flecks of gold in her sandy hair. Jemma could already tell she would be a nice neighbor, just by her kind smile and her musical voice. 

“Hello, Jemma. I believe I met your parents.”

“You did.” 

“Well it’s very nice to meet you as well. I’m Linda Fitz, but please just call me Linda. Mrs. Fitz is far too formal a thing to call a neighbor.”

Jemma grinned and nodded. “Okay, Linda.”

With a smile still lingering on her face, Linda turned her head towards the boy on the stoop. She gave him a little look that Jemma couldn’t quite read, a private conversation passing between mother and son. At the tiny flick of his mum’s head, the boy turned his gaze to Jemma.

“My name’s Fitz.”

“You go by your last name?” Jemma asked when the boy didn’t provide any more information. “Or is your name Fitz Fitz?”

That got a little grin to tug on his lips and Jemma felt a zing of pride for being able to make the obviously shy boy smile. 

“My first name’s Leopold,” he said, his pointer finger tracing along the lines of his airplane’s wing, “But, it’s not a name a kid wants to go by.”

“Hey,” his mother admonished, playfully throwing one of her gloves at him, “don’t be cheeky, Leo. It is a wonderful name. Now hand me back my glove.”

The boy, Fitz, leaned down and picked up the green gardening glove that had ricocheted off his chest, tossing it back to his mother with a small, happy little smirk. Jemma tucked her lips over her teeth and fought back a grin. 

“It was very nice to meet you both,” Jemma said, feeling like she should say something else, but not exactly sure what. Fitz wasn’t quite looking at her and he had a pink tint to his cheeks that let her know he was still nervous, even with introductions out of the way. 

“Leo,” his mother cut in, looking at the two kids over her shoulder as she continued to garden, “why don’t you go show Jemma the park. I’m sure she would love to see it.”

Jemma saw his eyes bounce from his mum to her and she couldn’t stop her hands from twisting the hem of her skirt again.

“Ummm,” he said, finally looking at her fully with a piercing pair of blue eyes, “if you would like to.”

“Sure,” she replied, “sounds fun.” 

Jemma watched as Fitz ran inside to put his plane away and gently shut his front door behind him. He brushed off the back pockets of his jeans and hopped off the short stoop, leading the way down the path towards the park. Their feet easily fell into stride with one another, but Jemma couldn’t help but notice the tenseness in his narrow shoulders. He was definitely nervous to talk to her and Jemma fought off the worry that he might hold the feelings she feared he did.

Please don’t be afraid of me, she thought again, I’m nicer than you know. 

“So, have you lived in Glasgow forever?” Jemma posed the question in an attempt to fill the silence and luckily Fitz seemed glad that she had been the one to do it first. Perhaps he wasn’t afraid necessarily; perhaps he was just nervous as a general rule. 

“Yeah,” he said, scratching an ear. “And you? I mean, I know you haven’t lived in Glasgow forever. What I meant--What I was going to--Where are you from?”

“Sheffield,” she said.

He nodded, his eyes drifting from his shoes to her. “Did you want to move?”

“Not really. But Glasgow seems nice.”

“It is nice,” Fitz assured and Jemma liked the little bit of strength his voice gained when he said it. “There’s a lot to do and there’s this really cool planetarium and Ms. Bandletamper runs the best sweets shop in the world. I promise you’ll like it. ”

“Pinky promise?” Jemma teased.

Fitz stopped walking and held out his pinky in front of him. “Pinky promise.”

With a laugh and her first genuine grin in days, Jemma locked their pinkies together, shaking their hands up and down twice.

By the time they got to the park, Fitz seemed like he was already warming up to talking to her and even challenged her to a race to the swings once they had caught sight of them. They broke into a run, catapulting themselves head on into their seats and laughing as their stomachs hit the bit of plastic hung up by two silver chains. 

“I won,” Jemma said.

“Barely,” Fitz said, “I’ll win next time.”

A flutter of butterflies flapped in her chest. He said there’d be a next time. 

“We’ll see, Fitz. I am an expert racer.”

He cocked an eyebrow, lifting his slightly bony chest from off the seat to turn and sit in it properly.

“Really? Where’s your proof? Do you have any medals? Awards?”

Jemma laughed. “I guess I don’t have any of those for racing. And, actually, running isn’t what I’m the best at. I am much better at science.”

It looked like Fitz had swallowed sunshine the way he looked at her then. “You like science too?”

“Oh, I love it! I’m going to be a biologist and study cuttlefish. They can change their skin with--”

“Chromatophores.”

Jemma blinked at the boy swinging next to her and grinned. Something told her that she and Fitz were going to be very good friends.

_ Ten Years Later _

Jemma had not spoken to Fitz in months. It wasn’t like she had meant to go so long without talking to him, it was simply that life had gotten in the way. School had picked up with finals and work was stealing away any extra time she had. Plus, she was still getting used to the time difference between her and Fitz. There was a seven hour time delay between California and England and, added to the number of miles between them as well, it made Fitz seem very far away from her. 

It had been difficult to part from her best friend in the world, but her opportunity to go to Stanford to finish her second doctorate was too good to pass up and he couldn’t simply up and abandon the project he had been working on at Oxford. No matter how simple the decision was to go, Jemma still wished she hadn’t had to say goodbye to Fitz. 

She still remembered the night before she had flown to the states. They had been visiting their parents as they always did in the summer, which meant that they had been going through their nightly ritual of swinging side by side on their respective swings, savoring the familiar sounds of their park and talking as easily as a river flowed. 

“Well,” he had said, “no matter how far apart we are, we’ll still be looking at the same moon.”

She knew he had said it to make her laugh, quoting the silly cliche with his signature smile tugging up the corner of his lips, but it had stuck with her. Sometimes she would look up at the moon as she walked home from a late night study session at the library or out her window when she was trying to fall asleep and she’d think of him. Staring up at the night sky, she could almost see his boyish grin stretching over his cleanly shaved cheeks, his blue eyes, the curls that always fell in his face when they got too long, which they tended to do. 

Jemma was aware that she should call him, especially now that the semester was over and she was planning the yearly trip to Glasgow to see her mum and dad. Before she had moved, she and Fitz would go together, driving up in his “it can last another year” blue Volvo. Now, home was a whole plane ride away and she wasn’t a hundred percent certain what his plans were.

It would only take a moment to text him, simply ask if he was going home for the summer as well. But, for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to do it. That was until Daisy made her look through Facebook.

It was a Friday night and neither Jemma nor her coworker and friend, Daisy, had work. So, they had decided on a girls night in. They had some random episodes of  _ Friends _ going on the television behind them and had enough chocolate to supply rations to an army. It had been a good night thus far and Jemma was grateful that she no longer had so much stuff on her plate. She was enjoying doing absolutely nothing, at least that’s what she told herself, and was just finishing popping some popcorn when Daisy called her from the couch. 

“You’re computer dinged,” she informed loudly, tilting her head upside down over the back of the couch, her dark hair wild from static electricity.

Jemma emerged from the kitchen, giving Daisy a curious look. “For what?”

“Facebook. Looks like your mom mentioned you in a post or something.”

Jemma groaned as she put her elbows on the back of the couch, just to the left of Daisy’s head. 

“What? Why are you groaning?” Daisy asked.

“She always posts the most embarrassing things. Last time it was this God awful picture of me on my sixth birthday.”

“Aww, it sounds adorable.”

“It was not adorable, Daisy. I had cake in my hair, hair that I had tried to cut myself, by the way. It was not a good look.”

“I still don’t see the God awful part. In fact, I want to see it and the picture you mom just posted.”

Jemma gasped as Daisy leaned towards the coffee table to grab the open and unlocked laptop. “Wha--Daisy no.”

“Daisy, yes.”

Jemma ran around the couch, throwing caution and popcorn to the wind as she lunged for the laptop. Reaching the laptop out of Jemma’s grasp, Daisy opened the notification and followed the link to the webpage, squirming away even as Jemma completely kneeled on the coffee table for the high ground.

“Aah! Jemma! This is adorable,” Daisy cooed, tugging the laptop closer to her chest and out of Jemma’s reach.

“Oh, bloody hell. What picture is it?”

With Jemma no longer struggling for a hold on the computer, Daisy sat up straighter in her seat and looked at the picture more carefully. 

“Ooooh, it’s you and a boy,” Daisy said, her eyebrows in her hair line and a cheeky grin stretching over her face. She looked back at the computer screen. “A cute boy.”

“Let me see.”

“Well come sit and look.”

Jemma plopped back on the couch and leaned over to see the picture her mum had posted. Her heart skipped. There she was with Fitz, the picture taken when they were both around seventeen. Jemma was giving her best fake smile, too many of her teeth showing to be genuine and her eyes looking pained or annoyed or both. Fitz on the other hand had on his signature smile, one corner of his mouth higher than the other and his eyes soft. Jemma’s family dog, a beagle by the name of Goddard, was on Fitz’s lap, tongue lapping out the side of his open mouth. 

“It’s Goddard’s birthday,” Jemma said, putting a hand up to her forehead. “How could I have forgotten?”

“The dude in the picture?” Daisy asked. She obviously hadn’t read the caption.

“No, the dude is Fitz. The dog is Goddard. Let me see the laptop so I can leave a comment.”

Once Jemma had her hold on the laptop, Daisy peered over to see the screen, suddenly blocking it when she noticed one of the messages left on the photo.

“Looks like the Fitz dude beat you to it,” she said with a smirk. 

Sure enough, there was Fitz’s name and profile picture above a comment reading, “Tell Goddard I said happy birthday. And tell him I love him more than Jemma.” Jemma scoffed at the comment but there was no malice in it. They had competed to be Goddard’s favorite since the day the Simmons’s had gotten him. The day they brought him home, Fitz had come over to say hello only to have the little beagle jump on him in excitement.

“He likes me more,” Fitz had said, holding his face back from being licked by the pup.

“Does not,” she had replied.

“Does so.”

“Does not.”

“Does so.”

Jemma clicked the reply button on Fitz’s comment and cracked her neck. Somehow it was much easier to communicate with him in a comment than through a message.

_ You do not, _ she wrote. 

To her surprise, a response came quickly.

_ Do so. _

She gave the screen a wicked grin.

_ Do not. _

_ Do so. _

“What is happening?” Daisy asked finally, looking between Jemma and the small string of messages.

“I’m replying to Fitz’s comment that he loves my dog more than me.”

A look fell over Daisy’s face that Jemma had learned quickly meant she was about to be asked a whole lot of questions. 

“So, who is this Fitz? How long have you known him? What is your relationship with him? What’s he like? And why, in the last year I have known you, have you not mentioned him before?”

Shrugging, Jemma began to tackle the questions.

“Firstly, I have mentioned him quite a bit.”

“Have not,” Daisy said, narrowing her eyes, “I think I would remember you mentioning a Fitz.”

“I guess I never mentioned him by name. But he’s pretty much in every story I tell about my childhood, so I must have talked about him.”

“Okay,” Daisy said, her face still stuck in her questioning look, “continue.”

“Fitz is my best friend--”

“I’m offended.”

“Daisy.”

“Kidding! Go on.”

Jemma rolled her eyes before continuing. “I moved across the street from him when I was ten and we’ve been best friends ever since. It’s just…”

“Just...what?”

“I haven’t talked to him in ages, not since I moved to the states.”

Daisy gave her a sympathetic smile. “But, you miss him.”

When Jemma simply shrugged, Daisy let out a scoff that morphed into a giggle. “Jemma, you should’ve seen your face when he replied to your comment. You looked like the sun had just come out after weeks of winter.”

“I did not.”

“Did too.”

“Well,” Jemma said, passing the laptop back to Daisy in order to quickly retrieve the popcorn, “even if I do miss him--which, fine, I do--it’s been far too long since I last talked to him for me to just strike up a conversation.” 

“Baloney,” Daisy said, leaning back into the back of the couch, “it’s that kind of bullshittery that causes miscommunication. Besides, you already broke the ice with him just now by commenting on the puppy birthday post. So, no harm in just messaging him.” 

Jemma noticed just in time that as Daisy spoke, she was slowly moving the mouse cursor towards starting an instant message conversation. 

“Daisy!”

“Hey, you want me to start it or should you?”

Releasing the tension that had been building up in her shoulders, Jemma sat back and took the computer. She opened Facebook’s instant messaging interface, typed in a  _ Hi, Fitz _ , only to lose her nerve as she watched the cursor blink. 

“Well?” Daisy said, her brows high and her mouth a line.

“Should I say anything else? Should I explain why it’s taken me so long to--”

Before Jemma could keep listing things, Daisy reached over and quickly pushed the enter key. The message sent with a swoop sound and Jemma let out a little squeak. 

“All done,” Daisy said matter of factly, “Now we just wait for a response.”

It came quickly and both women jumped in their seats at the ding of the reply. 

_ Hi, Jemma. How’ve you been? _

“Oh heck yes,” Daisy exclaimed, “He opened up the conversation.”

“What do I say?” Jemma said, worrying her bottom lip.

“Say how you’ve been. It’s not rocket science babes.”

“Fitz actually is a rocket scientist.”

Daisy jumped up onto her knees, pressing them down into the couch cushion in excitement. “Fitz is a what now? You could’ve mentioned--oh, Jemma, he’s a super genius too, isn’t he. Ah, the picture is coming into focus.”

Suppressing an eye roll, Jemma turned her attention back to her laptop screen. She typed out a reply to Fitz, getting a quick one back. It went on for quite a bit, the two of them falling back into their easy rhythm of conversation, even over text. There were a few times where he even typed something before she could, the computer equivalent to finishing each other’s sentences in real life. It was something that Daisy apparently found incredibly amusing, as she kept giggling whenever it occured. 

“What?” Jemma finally asked, having just pushed enter on a response. 

Daisy raised her hands in surrender, but Jemma could see the smile her friend was trying to hold back. “You two are cute together is all.”

“We are not together,” Jemma said.

“Yet,” Daisy said, hiding the word poorly in a breath. 

Jemma turned away before her emotions could slip through her features. “He’s far away, Daisy. And I won’t see him for at least--oh my God!” 

Jemma felt Daisy jump at her sudden exclamation, but she was too busy typing a question to Fitz to care. She had almost forgotten to ask him about his summer plans.

_ Are you going home for the summer?  _ She asked, hitting enter quickly with a click. She could tell just by the number of typos in his texts that Fitz was falling asleep. It was two in the morning in London and she knew that as much as he was a night owl, when Fitz got sleepy it was only a matter of moments before he completely conked out. 

_ Yes! I was jsut going to ask you! Just* _

Jemma laughed at his self correction, smiling as she put her fingers back onto the keys. 

_ I’m going home as well. Guess we’ll be neighbors again for the holiday. _

_ I can’t wait,  _ he replied.  _ Now I’m goig to go before I fall asleep with my head on my keyboard. Again. Goodnight, Jems. _

Her heart fluttering happily, Jemma grinned at her screen.

_ Goodnight, Fitz. _

The room was quiet for a moment, all of Jemma’s focus still on the bright wish goodnight Fitz had sent. It was Daisy that broke the spell.

“Now that you’re done talking to him, can we Facebook stalk him, please?”

Jemma turned to her friend, almost hurting her neck from how fast she snapped it.

“Do what? No, Daisy.”

“Oh, come on. I said please.”

“Why do you want to,” Jemma huffed, tapping the back of her laptop with her fingernails.

“A, curiosity. B, fun. And C, you don’t scroll through the hellsite enough to see any of his pictures so it will be an adventure for us both.”

There wasn’t much harm, Jemma guessed. Fitz didn’t post all that much anyway and it would be fun to see what he had been up to, put pictures to some of the things he described in the relatively brief conversation they had just had. 

“Fine,” Jemma said, moving the cursor to click on Fitz’s profile, “Just for a bit.”

Daisy cheered and moved closer, looking as though she were holding off clapping her hands. 

When Jemma clicked on his profile, she was surprised to see a good number of photos. What was more surprising, however, was how he looked. 

“Ooh! He’s hot,” Daisy said, her mouth slightly open even after she had said it. “He’s not even my type and I can admit that.”

For some reason, Jemma felt her heart doing little flips in her ribcage as she looked at the most recent picture he had posted. He was smiling at the camera, standing at a lab bench holding something that looked like a Sonic Screwdriver in his left hand and a real screwdriver in his right. His features were just how she remembered them, bright blue eyes, brows that bordered the line between kept and unkept, pointed cupid's bow and full bottom lip. His smile pulled back his cheeks the same way it had always done. 

But, there was something new about him, something grown up that he’d added in the last year since she had seen him. He had rough stubble all across his cheeks and chin and his hair was shorter than it had been, but still long enough to show it was supposed to curl. His wardrobe was slightly different as well. He wasn’t wearing a checkered shirt and a tie with a jumper over the top, or something like it. No, he was wearing a deep rich brown cardigan with the sleeves rolled up and a black t-shirt that fit him nicely paired with a nice pair of dark denim jeans. He looked more fit, the muscles on his arm defined and his jawline more chiseled. For some reason, Jemma was particularly taken by the line from his collar bone to his ear created by the way he was turning his head. 

“Are you going to click the next picture or should I leave you alone with this one?” Daisy said, smashing into Jemma’s thoughts like the Kool-Aid man.

Jemma shook her head in an attempt to clear the wayward emotions that had blossomed somewhere near her heart. “Yes, sorry. He just looks different is all.” 

Daisy quirked a brow. 

“Not bad different,” Jemma quickly amended at Daisy’s sideways glance, “Just--he looks--man--grown--he has stubble now.” She winced at her own cobbled up words but all her friend did was begin to laugh hysterically. Even though it was just Daisy, Jemma wished that she could hide her face under a blanket or something. For some reason, she had become rather flustered, her tongue tying up into a knot in her mouth. 

“Mhmm, he does have that now…” 

Jemma could feel Daisy’s eyes activating their deep-scan mode and so she quickly moved onto the next picture. They all followed in a similar vein, Fitz in the lab, Fitz on campus, Fitz at a pub with what looked like a group of friends. In all of them, he looked content, smiling and happy and like he was having the time of his life. 

“He looks happy,” Jemma said before she could think better of it. The tone was way off from what she had meant it to be and she could partly sense Daisy being surprised by her behavior. 

However, Daisy’s response was filled more with sympathy and understanding than disapproval. “Remember it’s idealized, Jems. You only post something like, what, once a month; and if we were to look at them, can you honestly say that they would be an accurate display of how your life has been the past year?”

Jemma thought back to her own social media page, the photos of her and her own friends at their favorite coffee shop, the one from when they all went to the beach for the weekend, the photograph of the fancy dinner she had cooked for her friend’s birthday. Going off of all of that, no one would know all the stress she had been under, all the papers she had spent nights fiddling with and finishing, all the times she had simply stared at the moon. 

“Okay,” Jemma said with a puff of air, “I see your point.”

“Of course you do. Now next picture.”

Once Jemma clicked the next photo, she wished she could go back. Especially after the high pitched squeal Daisy let out once she had seen it.

It was the photo he had posted for her birthday, a relic from when they were eleven and dorky, pre-braces and before they had any semblance of a fashion sense. Their heads were close together, Fitz’s arm around her shoulder and his curls all haphazard. Jemma, on the other hand, had her hair done in waves, pushed off her face with a blue hairband. Fitz was making a face, wrinkles formed on his nose as he scrunched it up and stuck out his tongue, and Jemma had on that big fake smile she used to give to be funny. It was wonderfully awful. 

“Alright,” Jemma said, pulling the laptop away and snapping it shut, “that’s enough of that.”

“No,” Daisy whined, reaching up both arms in a half-assed attempt to get the computer back. 

“Nope. All done with embarrassing photos. Back to watching  _ Friends  _ and eating chocolate.”

* * *

On her flight home, Jemma could not tame the butterflies that continually flapped about in her chest. They had been bursting to life more and more frequently since she had started talking to Fitz again and the closer she got to going home the more excited they became. 

The day before her flight, Fitz had texted her about being able to pick her up from the airport, having decided to drive up from London a day ahead of her. 

_ Are you sure?  _ She had asked, wishing desperately that he said yes.

_ Of course, Jems. I’m not going to let you pay for a cab when I’ve got a working car. _

_ Is it really a working car? _

_ Hey! It’s doing its best and still breathing. _

She had laughed for quite a bit at the idea of seeing his face, indignant at her implication that his old Volvo wasn’t up to snuff.

It was a little thing, him picking her up from the airport, but it meant seeing him that much faster and she couldn’t stop her knee from bouncing in anticipation for the latter half of the flight. The man next to her must have thought she was afraid of flying what with the way he kept giving her reassuring smiles over his glasses and off the side of his car magazine. 

It seemed to take forever to get off the plane. They sat on the tarmac for what felt like hours waiting for their gate to open up and even once they had made it, Jemma was in a seat that was rather far back. Finally, she made it off the plane and started towards baggage claim. 

Holding her messenger bag over her shoulder and fixing her hair, Jemma stepped onto the escalator. Her heart flipped when she looked over the railing. There, at the bottom of the moving stairs, was Fitz. He was in dark pants and a blue grey button up, his sleeves characteristically rolled up like he had just come from working on something. He was smiling widely and the moment they caught each other’s eye, his hands slipped from his pockets to his sides. He was in front of her the moment she stepped off the last sliding step.

Jemma’s breath caught in her throat when she saw him up close. She probably smelled like plane and looked like hell but she didn’t think Fitz noticed. He didn’t have the time. The moment she was off the escalator and close enough to touch him, she threw herself around his neck. His arms came around her waist and she felt his nose brush her neck. He smelled like some sort of pine musk and his scruff was not unpleasantly scratchy against her skin. He was as warm as ever and felt like home in a way she couldn’t quite put to words. 

“I missed you,” he said, his words muffled on her neck. 

“I missed you, too,” she said. She didn’t want to pull away, the weight of him against her a comfort she didn’t know she needed, soothing an aching homesickness she hadn’t known she had been feeling. At the same time, she desperately wanted to see his face. 

Pulling away from the embrace--and not sure exactly what she was doing--Jemma took his face in her hands and looked at him more completely. It was just like the picture, but so much better. This close and this real, she could see for certain he was still Fitz.

“You look good,” Jemma said, her hands going from his face to his firm shoulders.

“You do too,” he said. As her hands traveled down his arms, he leaned back, holding her hands when they reached his. 

“I like the scruff,” she said. 

“You’d be the only one,” Fitz said, letting go of her hands to scratch behind his ear. “My mum said I looked tired and your mum said I looked like a tortured scientist. And it took Goddard a moment to remember who I was. He did though, and said I was his favorite.”

A bubble of laughter escaped Jemma’s lips and she caught a smile flicker over his face. Oh how she had missed that smile.

* * *

The next few weeks were wonderful. Jemma had missed her mum and dad and Linda and talking to them again was nicer than she thought it would have been. She liked cooking with her mum and stargazing with her dad, and liked taking Goddard on his walk to the park and back. Her and Fitz helped Linda out in the garden and she was gifted with her annual vase of peonies from her favorite neighbor. 

And she had missed Fitz, even more than she thought she had. She loved her friends back home. She loved watching crappy television and talking with Daisy, she loved going on runs with Bobbi, she loved meal-planning with Trip, and she loved hanging out with the lot of them together. But no one was quite like Fitz. 

It wasn’t just the years of knowing one another and the catalog of memories that that came with or the fact that she always had a good sense of what he was thinking and how he always knew just how to cheer her up. It was also everything that they had grown into. They weren’t stuck in the past, but liked each other how they were now. He was different in some ways. He went out more and was more willing to talk to people, he wasn’t as into Star Trek as he had once been (though he still liked it), and he had developed a liking for mushrooms that he hadn’t had a year previously.

“My mate Hunter kept making me and my other friend Mack eat them. He’d find a way to work them into meals and since he was cooking we couldn’t complain. Somehow the tricky bastard managed to get us both to like them.”

Jemma knew she had changed as well since moving to the States. She had grown to like the beach, was more confident in her work, had gotten a tad better at going with the flow, and, after starting her lectures, found that she made a rather good teacher. So, it wasn’t as though her and Fitz had somehow slipped back into who they had been. It was more that they continued to like one another as who they were now. 

The summer went by far too quickly and before Jemma could appreciate how much time had passed, it was Fitz’s birthday. It was always a bittersweet day, being four days before they both had to leave and therefore a reminder for how much time they had left together.

“You’re sure you don’t want to do anything?” Jemma said again for the hundredth time.

“I don’t want to make a fuss,” he replied for the hundredth time, pushing the eggs about the frying pan. 

She gave him a questioning look from her perch on the countertop, pausing in her mixing of the pancake batter. Fitz grabbed a plate from the cupboard closest to Jemma’s head, his face suddenly very close to hers. “I don’t know. Just can’t think of anything specific for us to go and do. As long as I’m with you I don’t really mind what we do.”

Jemma felt her mouth fall slightly open. Why did him saying that make her heart beat so quickly?

“Well, what if after breakfast we just wandered about the city? Me and you,” she suggested, looking deep into the batter she was stirring. 

She heard the stovetop click off. “I did do all the mother and son birthday stuff with my mum yesterday, so we’d be free the whole day.” Jemma looked up, sensing there was something more he was going to say. “Maybe we could get dinner too? Someplace nice.” 

There was something behind his words that made Jemma’s pounding heart stop rather suddenly, but she wasn’t yet sure exactly what.

“That sounds wonderful, Fitz.”

* * *

It was a warm August afternoon with the most wonderful breeze blowing through the trees. The city was active, people milling about and chatting, walking in and out of shops. It was lovely. They started first at Fitz’s favorite sweets shop, collecting a mountain of specialty candies in a little take out box. Next they got lunch from a nice sandwich place they had frequented all through their teenage years. 

“Fitz, what are you doing?” Jemma asked with a laugh, her sandwich paused half-way between her basket and her mouth. 

“I’m eating a lemon drop,” he said simply.

“In the middle of eating your sandwich?” 

“Hey, it’s my birthday.”

Jemma’s shoulders met her ears as she took a bite of her own sandwich. She watched with suppressed giggles as Fitz put the lemon drop in his mouth, sucked on it for a moment, only to realize that he would have to spit it out if he wanted to take another bite of his lunch any time soon.

He spit out the yellow candy on the blue checkered paper of his basket. 

“Ugh, Fitz!”

He grinned that boyish grin of his and Jemma couldn’t help but return the smile, though she did add an eye roll as a way of standing her ground on the whole incident.

Finishing their food, they threw away their scraps and placed the baskets in the correct spot next to the trash. They walked out of the shop and stood just to the left of the door.

“What next birthday boy?” Jemma asked, grabbing Fitz’s upper arm and rocking up on her tiptoes with a smile.

“Bookstore?” Fitz suggested.

“Bookstore,” Jemma agreed. 

She slipped her hand off his arm, starting to walk forward when she felt a slight tug. Fitz had taken a gentle hold of her hand. As she turned back to look at him, her confused expression quickly slipped into a beaming one. He had a pink tint to his cheeks and his eyes were a glowing blue in the summer sun. The way he was stopped, Jemma knew he was giving her the chance to let go of his hand. She could think of nothing she wanted to do less than let go of his strong calloused palm, so she squeezed it once before using it to tug him forward.

“Shall we?”

She saw his adam’s apple bob before one corner of his lips pulled up higher than the other. “Yes, we shall.”

* * *

Jemma did not let go of Fitz’s hand more than twice in the following hours. Once because Fitz had to use the loo and once because she saw a book that he would love and had to buy it before he saw it. Holding Fitz’s hand both awakened and calmed the familiar stomach butterflies. Everytime they shifted slightly in their hold on one another, she could feel the wings begin to flap, but once they had solidified the new position the warmth of Fitz’s hand soothed them away. Why hadn’t they done this before?

Something had shifted between them and Jemma knew Fitz felt it too. His glances were longer, lingering on her eyes--and she could have sworn her lips--for just a few moments longer than they used to. She knew she was looking at him differently too. She couldn’t help but appreciate his stubble more and more, the line of his jaw, his scent, his voice, the way her name rolled on his tongue.  _ Jemma.  _ How had she gone so long without hearing her name in his lilt?  _ Jemma.  _ She could listen to him talk forever.

They had dinner somewhere nice, just as he suggested. A little old Italian place with white table cloths and flowers and candles at the center of every arrangement. They spent the whole night laughing, talking, and staring. For multiple minutes they just looked at one another and smiled like it was the first time they had ever seen each other in candlelight.

When the dinner was over--as well as dessert, because it was Fitz’s birthday after all-- they walked out of the restaurant together, not even hesitating to reach for the other’s hand. 

“So,” Jemma said, leaning into Fitz, “where shall we go to cap off the night?”

Fitz stared straight ahead, but she could have sworn she saw him look briefly at his shoes. “I was thinking we could go to the park. Just sit on the swings and look at the stars.”

Jemma put her head on Fitz’s shoulder as they reached a crosswalk. “Well, it is tradition.”

It didn’t take that long to get back home, parking Fitz’s car in his old gravel driveway before they began to walk to the park. When they reached the edge and were in sight of the swings, they dropped their clasped hands and broke out into a run. Well, it was tradition.

“I win,” Fitz said.

“By a hair,” Jemma said.

“At least by a nose.”

“Fingernail.”

Fitz grinned. “Better luck next time, ya sore loser.”

Jemma stuck out her tongue and sat down on the plastic seat with a little jump. The night was filled with the sound of crickets and the remnants of the afternoon breeze drifting through the trees. She could hear the creaking of Fitz’s swing and it was a wonderful reminder that he was there, next to her as he always had been. 

“I’ve missed you,” Jemma said. She didn’t care that she had said it to him before. She needed him to know just how much she meant it.

“I've missed you too.” 

Jemma looked at the man swinging next to her, the man she had known longer than she hadn’t. He was glancing at her just as he had always done when they were on the swings, his chin slightly ducked and his gaze drifting up through his unfairly long lashes. Yet, there was something new there, new like the feelings that had cropped up between them. Or perhaps it was an old expression she hadn’t understood until just then.

“Fitz,” she breathed. 

“Yeah?” he asked.

Something about the warmth of the moonlit night around them and the way Fitz was looking at her was clogging up her throat. She wished more than anything he would read her mind about now. 

She planted her feet in the loose dirt, the grass long gone with years of playing children and loitering teens, and watched as his eyes roved over her face, how they lingered on her mouth. With one little push off the ground, his swing swung right next to hers, close enough that he could grab onto the silver chain to keep from swinging away. His hand was just a bit higher than where their heads were and they were so close she could smell pine. With a shallow breath she tilted towards him, closing the remaining gap and pressing her lips to his.

He was tentative at first and the gentle way they glided their lips together was like a brand new introduction. Not a starting over, just a new beginning. But it had been ten years and they couldn’t waste anymore time. She placed her palm on his cheek, enjoying the way his scruff felt both against her palm and her own cheek. She tilted her head more to the side and Fitz began to work in tandem. It seemed that just as always, they were on the same page.

They came up for air when she could sense the arm Fitz was using to keep their swings close was getting tired, the chains moving ever so slightly away from one another. 

“Fitz,” she hummed, their lips still nearly together. 

“I’ve wanted to do that for a very long time,” he said, smiling as he touched his forehead to hers.”

There were the butterflies again. “Me too.”

“Jemma,” he said, losing grip on her swing’s chain completely and floating away, “I was wondering--umm--I was thinking--would you. Oh God, let me restart. Jemma, would you like to come over for a cup of tea?”

“Just a cup of tea?” Jemma asked, her tone playful--and she hoped sexy--but the blush creeping up on her neck giving away her nervousness. 

Even in the partial darkness, she could see Fitz go crimson. Along with the blush, his eyes bugged out a bit and his lips were moving without any sound coming out. Finally, he took a very large breath and spoke.

“Or more. If you’d like.”

Confidence and excitement and happy nervousness all flooded into her bloodstream and she grinned. “I would love that, Fitz.”

* * *

When she had booked her trip home she had been excited to see Fitz. She thought that maybe they would watch a show together, maybe go to the planetarium, spend time with one another as they always did. Never, in her wildest most hopeful fantasies, did she expect that she would end up wrapped up in Fitz’s warm embrace, let alone post sleeping with him. It was perfect.

The next three days were better than anything she could have wished for, even if her parents and Fitz’s mum continually gave them looks that practically screamed “Finally!” every time they walked into a room together. They went on two more dates after Fitz’s birthday, two wonderful dates. Things had shifted between them, but in the best way possible. She was still Jemma and he was still Fitz. They were as they always had been, just with some extra wonderful something thrown in. 

The only issue was the two booked plane tickets that would take them far away from the other. They had laid in bed for a while, passing ideas back and forth as they tried to think of some way they could be together once the summer ended. There was long distance, but it wasn’t an option they were overly thrilled about. However, it seemed to be their only one. 

That is until Fitz burst into the Simmons's kitchen the morning of Jemma’s departure.

Jemma was sitting at the small little kitchen table, poking at the strawberries on top of her pancakes with a sad expression on her face.

“Oh, darling, I know it will be hard,” Anna said, running her hand soothingly down her daughters arm, “but if anyone could make this work, it is you and Fitz.”

Jemma smiled a thanks to her mother, but before she could say anything the kitchen door flew open as Fitz fell into the room, causing Goddard to rush in and start barking his head off.

“Hey Goddard. Hey boy, hush. Jemma, I have to tell you something. Oh--umm--hi, Mrs. Simmons. How are you? Are those pancakes?”

“There’s extra by the stove,” Anna said with a laugh, “now let me leave you two alone.”

Once her mother was out of the kitchen, taking Goddard along with her, Jemma looked more fully at Fitz. He was staring at the pancakes, but, sensing her looking at him no doubt, he shifted his attention back to her and sat down at the table.

“Fitz--”

“I got a call this morning,” he said, his smile taking up half of his face.

Jemma quirked an eyebrow. “About what?”

“An opportunity.”

“What kind of opportunity?” 

He grinned. “A great one. A position at Stark Industries in none other than San Francisco, California.”

“What?” Jemma jumped up from her chair, not able to continue to sit. “Fitz tha--tha--that’s incredible! That’s only thirty minutes away from Stanford. And of course it’s only the biggest tech company in the world. It’s wonderful and--and are you going to take it?”

His brows drew together and his smile shifted to a look of incredulity. “What do you mean ‘am I going to take it?’ Jemma, I took it on the spot.”

“But what about your work at Oxford? What about your friends? Fitz, what about--”

Fitz stood, the sound of his chair scraping on the tile cutting off whatever else she was going to list. He stood in front of her and put his hand on her arm in a way that instantly steadied her racing mind.

“Jemma, it was my work at Oxford that put me on their radar. And as much as I like it there, I couldn’t just pass up this opportunity. As for my friends, of course I would miss them, but I think they would be shoving me on the plane towards my dream life before they’d be on their knees begging me to stay.”

She looked at him through her lashes. “You’re sure this is what you want? It’s just that you seem to like living in London.”

To her surprise, Fitz let out a bark of laughter. “Yeah, Jems, I like London, but I love you.”

In that moment, standing in her parent’s kitchen, Jemma felt the world all fall into place. “Good,” she said, staring at him directly and smiling from ear to ear, “Because I love you too.”

And she did. And if she were being honest, she kind of always had. She had loved him since they were the girl who dreamed of studying cuttlefish and the boy who designed model planes. And she would love him for the rest of her life.


End file.
